The content concept of the map “Land use and natural features” at 1:750,000 in the “Atlas of the GDR”

Summary

This article explains the conceptual and methodological design of the 1:750,000 map “Land Use and Natural-Regional Endowment” in the Atlas of the German Democratic Republic. The map, assigned to the atlas section on natural foundations, has two related purposes: to portray the contemporary natural environment as transformed by technology and social use, and to reveal major relationships between natural conditions and society’s territorial utilization. Because these two domains contain numerous variables and interactions, the author rejects an exhaustive representation and instead develops a generalized synthesis suited to a small-scale overview map. Compared with approaches based on hemeroby, cultural condition, vegetation naturalness, or technically altered geosystems, combining land use with natural endowment is considered the most feasible method because both components can be mapped continuously and subjected to coherent thematic and spatial generalization. The map was designed through an iterative procedure: separate overview maps of land use and natural conditions were prepared, cartographically combined, and progressively coordinated with a shared legend. Content was substantially reduced to maintain visual clarity and a balanced equivalence between the two components. Land use is represented primarily through stable, process-related areal patterns, whereas rapidly changing, linear, point-based, or spatially diffuse influences—including atmospheric, water, and soil pollution, recreation pressure, dumps, hedges, spoil heaps, and protected areas—are largely excluded. The retained forms are consolidated into broad complexes such as agricultural areas, mixed agricultural-forestry areas, closed forests, settlements with peripheral zones, water bodies, and extraction areas. Statistical comparisons demonstrate that these complexes do not correspond mechanically to official economic land-use categories: settlement zones, for example, incorporate built-up land as well as enclosed agricultural and forest parcels, while many small settlements and transport features remain integrated within other complexes. Selection and generalization are therefore based on functional influence on natural conditions rather than administrative classification alone. Small settlements are shown separately only where their size, spatial association, infrastructure, industrial activity, mining, or recreational functions justify it. The natural-environment component is likewise simplified beyond what the nominal scale could technically accommodate, thereby preventing an excessively fragmented legend and preserving comparability with land-use patterns. Overall, the map is presented as a synthetic instrument for identifying broad territorial configurations, interpreting the material and physical structure of space, and assessing how dominant forms of social use modify natural systems. Although it cannot fully depict environmental effects or all causal relationships, it constitutes a methodological transition from conventional natural-regional mapping toward environmental cartography and provides a basis for interpreting land-cultural territorial types and the spatial correspondence—or tension—between natural potential and land use in the GDR.